10 Tips for Choosing an Effective Domain Name
Trying to come up with a name for your business? Pretty important huh? Well maybe you should start with what is available for a domain name first and foremost. After all…whether you like it or not your domain name automatically becomes your branding. With the sea of business name possibilities sometimes its best to narrow things down and go with a name that is AVAILABLE. It will really help narrow things down when determining your new business or website name.
We now present you our 10 tips for choosing an effective domain name:
1. Keep it short and simple
Your allowed up to 63 characters but keep in mind people have to remember it! It will also be plastered all over your marketing so if its too long it will look a little funny. Will you remember a domain name that is 4 words long? Probably not. Try for 1-2 words if you can.
Pro tip: If you can keep it under 8 characters your golden!
2. Branding. Make it Memorable
If you want people to remember your domain name you’re going to have to go that extra mile. It takes a lot of effort and determination to nail down that perfect, clever, and more importantly, AVAILABLE domain name. From a branding perspective your domain name automatically becomes your brand-name whether you intend it or not. So make it memorable!
Pro tip: Know your target audience!
3. Top Keyword(s) IN the domain name!
HUGE bonus points if you can include at least 1 keyword in your domain name. Several of the major search engines rank web sites much higher if the main keyword is contained in the domain name. From an SEO perspective its pretty HUGE. A lot of our clients overlook this too. Very unfortunate.
Pro Tip: Register an additional, longer domain name containing your top 2-3 keywords then set it to automatically redirect visitors to the real domain name / website. BOOM.
4. Avoid Confusion, Make it easy to spell
Keep it short, keep is EASY. Is it a difficult word to spell? Maybe not a good idea. Does it look funky when you look at it? Yeah…..also probly not a good idea. Words can be visualized so keep that in mind. Vision is the strongest of human senses you know.
Pro tip: Does it look good in print? It should.
5. Which Extensions Matter?
#1 rule of thumb is always go with the .com. That should be your primary goal. It is the first extension people think to try when searching. If you absolutely cannot get the .com then your next best bet is the .net.
Pro tip: .com is the oldest and most established of all extensions.
6. Brainstorm & Thesaurus
Struggling to come up with something? Don’t be afraid to use a thesaurus. Brainstorm all your ideas and take it to pen and paper. Just seeing something in print can help. Make a list of all your unique keywords and go from there. You might surprise yourself by stumbling upon a word combination that works.
Pro tip: Thesaurus. Use it.
7. Don’t be shy….Order them all!
One domain name may not be enough. Its never a bad idea to register many similar domain names. If you have “yourname.com” why not purchase “yourname.net” as well? This will make sure no one else takes it!
Pro tip: You can easily point several domain names to the same website.
8. Register your domain name NOW
Good domain names are being snatched up at an alarming rate. Its become big business after all. If the idea strikes and the domain name is available I would strongly suggest buying it RIGHT NOW. For less then $10 a year you can just “park it” until you figure out your proper website approach. Most clients, including myself, tend to have many domain names just waiting for the right idea. Sometimes you might have an awesome idea…..but no name. Other times you might have a GREAT name but no idea what you are going to do with it…..yet.
Pro tip: Is it available? Don’t hesitate. Get it NOW.
9. Trademarks
You might want to check that you are not infringing on an existing trademark. Years ago this wasn’t really enforced and people bought up everything they could in hopes of selling it to a major corporation. That has all changed in today’s climate unfortunately. An available domain name does not necessarily give you the right to register and use it. Companies now sue people who do this. Whoa.
Pro tip: Don’t get sued
10. Maybe just stick with Letters in the domain name…
Domain names can only use letters, numbers, and hyphens. Spaces, special characters, and symbols are not allowed. Domain names are also not case sensitive.
Pro tip: Use hyphens ONLY if you REALLY need to. But we normally advise against it.
In summary
Keep it simple, memorable, use your top keyword, get the .com, and use a thesaurus for ideas if you have to. When you find the right one BUY it up right away! Happy domain name hunting!
Stoltz Design Etsy | Selling Prints & Glass Mosaics!
Stoltz Design is on Etsy! What is Etsy? Its an e-commerce website focused on selling unique art and crafts. Kind of like a crafty eBay for artists. We sell our unique, custom designed artwork on prints as well as glass mosaic table tops for sports teams and the like.
Webpage Creation | Effective About Page with x5 W’s
Your companies ALL important bio. AKA About Page.
Starring the x5 W’s | Questions to ask yourself.
1) Who are you?
2) What do you do?
3) When did you start? Your history…
4) Where are you? Areas you cover, surrounding cities
5) hoW are you accomplishing what you claim to?
Answer the 5 W’s as a 1-2 paragraph summary. Give your audience a quick overview of your website without giving them the burden of reading through a lot of text.
Effective About Page | IDEAS
Consider using a good photo of you or your team
Clients & Companies you’ve worked with or currently work with
Biographies of employees
Other companies, Partners, Related websites
Professional links to other websites
Links to social media accounts (idea: put these on your homepage & contact page)
Structure your content with the inverted triangle method. Graphic below:
Writing Tips for an Effective About Page
Write with personality. How you write is very important!
Your site isn’t run by robots. There are people behind it.
Whose your audience? Focus on your target market
Whats the nature of the company? Stay specific!
Closing thoughts: Pretend you’re having a conversation with your audience in person. Read your current About page out loud: Is it how you’d address your audience if you were, say, in front of them speaking at a conference. Keep it straight forward, professional, and most importantly to the point.
In Summary: Ask yourself the x5 W’s and answer them using the inverted triangle. Good luck!
Facebook | Stoltz Design
Stoltz Design is on Facebook! We like to post new examples of logos and websites we have designed for clients, new glass mosaic table tops we have created, new artsy prints we sell, and general tech tips we like to share with friends!
Webpage Creation | Effective Contact Page
Providing a well designed and thought out Contact Page on your website will look professional and perhaps make people actually contact you. A properly designed contact page promotes the perception that your company is an organization which conducts itself in a professional manner.
We’ve gathered our ideas and thoughts, did a bit of some research, and have some helpful ideas to consider for your website’s ALL important contact page:
Provide Every Method of Contact. Complete mailing address, phone(s), fax, email, etc
At least 1 Email Link. A general correspondence email works well.
Embedded Google Map. Or at least a link to a map of your location.
Hours of Operation. Super important to your clients looking to get in touch.
Photo(s). Ideas: pics of your staff, pic of your building, pic of your outside signage, artsy logo pic.
Employees & Titles. You can list these complete with phones numbers and email address links.
Social Media. Links to the usuals. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
Links to other Websites. Get them to link back to you for SEO benefits.
Call to Action. aka. Online Contact Form. Very important. More on that…
A simple call to action contact form provides an opportunity to make it easy for a visitor to contact you. It will also provide an opportunity for you to gather important data about your visitors with their permission. This information, which usually includes email addresses, areas of interest, and how they were referred, is invaluable for sales, marketing, and product development. Overall form should be short, succinct, and only ask the essentials. Once the user clicks the “Submit” button its best to send them to a “thank you for your submission” page.
Video Tutorials | Stoltz Design Hosting Client Cpanel
Good news for ALL of our Stoltz Design Web Hosting clients! We now have video tutorials online for your reference. How are they helpful? Here are some examples:
Setting up your email w/ Outlook, iPhone or Android Phone.
Accessing your email web based w/ our Cpanel
Help with you Stoltz Design hosted WordPress blog
You need help uploading files to your server via an ftp progam
A Great Password | Strong Security is Crucial
Hard to crack passwords are everything these days. In the last month alone I’ve had multiple Facebook friends get hacked to send out spam. Whether you are using email, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, or anything else, strong password are key in stopping ANYONE from compromising your important information.
We have scoured the net and consolidated a list of tips you need. We’re going to start with a very strong password and then give you a list of reasons why:
Our password EXAMPLE: W0rdPr355(p@55w0rd!) Why is it so good? Here we go:
Complex passwords are best (8-12 characters or more). Our example has 20.
Creatively “convert” letters to numbers. Instead of a “o” use “0″ as in the number zero instead of an “o”. Or perhaps an “e” instead of a “3″. or an “s” to a “5″. Use whatever scheme you can remember.
Use Special characters. For example, put a word into a nice pair of parentheses. Our example has (p@55w0rd!). Also notice the “@”. That additional special character replaces an “a” in our example. The use of the “!” is intentional as well.
Use a combination of lower case letters and upper case letters. We use WordPr355 in our example. We went with uppercase letters to start each word.
Is it complex? Does it look like a mess? GOOD, that’s what you want. It should only make sense to you using your desired methodology!
Summary: A good password: Long and complex, replace letters with numbers, use a combination of lower and upper case letters, use special characters, remember your desired methodology and keep it to yourself!
File Naming on the Web | SEO Tips
File naming conventions are key to creating a well-organized, SEO friendly website. Using a simple naming convention, all of your pages, directories, images, and pdfs should generally be named for the content of that file. Search engines will also take note and it can only improve your site’s overall SEO.
ONLY use letters, numbers, and dashes (dashes have proven to be better for SEO than underscores!)
DO NOT use spaces or special characters
Naming of HTML’s & URL’s must be as logical, clear, and to the point as possible. Easy to remember and easy to spell. Shorter is always better but try and include an applicable keyword in the name.
Good Examples: about-company-name. html, company-name-services.html
Bad Examples: Abt_our-business.html, our-general_Work&stuff.html, 411_our-branch.html
Naming of images and other documents (Pictures and PDFs) Just like your URLs: logical, clear, easy to remember and easy to spell. Make sure ALL file names clearly denote their content!
Good Examples: washington-state-green-apple.jpg, mike-smith-headshot.gif, company-name-press-release.pdf
Bad Examples: Wash_st-app.jpg, headshot.gif, PR_071511.pdf
Bottom line: Its better to be organized and you should always be trying to improve your site’s SEO performance anyway! Don’t over stuff with keywords but always include them for SEO benefits. If you are a Stoltz Design Web Editor User then take note!
COLOURlovers = Color Inspiration
Looking for color inspiration for your logo or website?
Look no further than Colourlovers.
Founded in 2004, COLOURlovers is a social network service and blog that focuses on color inspiration and color trends for both personal and professional creative projects. According to Wikipedia as of September 2008, members of the site have created and shared more than 555,000 color palettes and named over 1,450,000 colors.
Optimizing Website Meta Tags | HUGE for SEO
Getting people to find you on the ever-growing internet is no easy task. Having keyword packed on-page links & content is GREAT for SEO, but also having well built TITLE tags & DESCRIPTION tags (for every page of your website) can also be crucial for people finding you online with search engines likes Google & Bing. We have compiled research and narrowed it down to whats IMPORTANT. Optimizing your website’s x2 MOST important meta tags:
TITLE TAG treat this like solid gold!
Important words first. (EXAMPLE: “Target Keyword #1 – Target Keyword #2 – Company X”). Avoid and, or, the – basically words that are SEO stop-words. Each page gets a UNIQUE title tag. 65 characters or below.
DESCRIPTION TAG focus on phrases, not lone keywords
Should read naturally. 1-2 sentences. At most 145-150 characters with minimum of 90-100. Try and naturally include ALL keywords from TITLE TAG.
WEBSITE CONTENT
It is also VERY important to have all the keywords (in both TITLE tag and DESCRIPTION tag) in your ACTUAL WEBSITE CONTENT. Very important!
For counting characters we recommend Javascript Kit’s Online Character Counter.
Stoltz Design Website Editor users can easily log-in and edit their website’s TITLE and DESCRIPTION tags. You can also easily track your website’s traffic via our included Cpanel. See what is working, what isn’t, and make changes to both of your tags. Proper Search Engine Optimization can take time, but getting people to search and land on your page is worth the extra effort!